Under the Wire: Bad Boys Undercover (5 page)

Reid could see from one side of the building to the other. No people inside. Whoever ripped the place apart had moved on, but that didn’t mean they’d left.

He kept pressing forward, clearing every inch and stopping for a quick check of the other door near the middle of the building. Just a small bathroom. The one place that looked as if it survived a destroy-everything-in-sight search.

“This is the main building.” Cara whispered the words directly into his ear in a voice so soft even he barely heard her. “The makeshift labs and collection areas. The communications center.”

He nodded to let her know he understood. Then his gaze switched to the far end of the complex. Parker must have cleared the last building because he headed toward them just as Reid reached the set of double doors connected the two main units. He gestured for Cara to stop.

“Do not move.” He wasn’t sure if he said the words or just telegraphed them to her, but he could tell she understood. With wide eyes filled with fear, she inched back until she hovered in the doorway with her back tight against the doorjamb. Her hands tightened around the pocketknife until her knuckles turned white.

He winked at her, hoping she took that as a sign everything would be okay. And it would. There was no way in hell she was doing anything other than walking out of there. If it took his last breath, she’d leave Russia healthy and safe.

Parker went first then Reid slipped inside behind him. The open area was a replay of the other building.
A mess of broken equipment and shredded documents. Smashed rocks with piles of what looked like dirt on the floor.

He could make out muddy footprints. Boots, large, likely belonging to men with equally big guns. No spent cartridges or signs of shooting. Even more important, no blood. No sign that humans had been injured here.

After walking from one end to the other, opening the limited number of doors and searching under every desk and around every pile, Parker stood in the middle of what looked to be the main office area. “Clear.”

“Clear.” Reid didn’t get what had happened or where her team had gone. Only the three of them stood in the building now. He motioned for Cara to come farther inside. “I think we can rule out that animals attacked you. This mess was done by men.”

“Did you see any of them the other night by the tents?” Parker shot her an unblinking stare. “Any clue what we’re looking for here?”

The devastation showed on her face. So pale and drawn. She bent down and picked up a stapler with shaking hands then set it on the edge of one of the desks. “I thought we were being hit by a freak storm. It was so loud and disconcerting and then . . .”

Reid ached for her, for what she’d been through. He knew if he’d lost his team without explanation it would hollow him out. The “no man left behind” motto meant something to him. “What is it?”

She winced. “I passed out. I remember the fear and bits and pieces, but mostly my memory picks up the next morning when I woke up wrapped in the tent with blood all over me and it.”

Parker hissed through his teeth. “That’s pretty fucked up.”

Anxiety edged up on Reid. They’d been talking and walking and he’d missed a pretty big fucking step in the process. “I get the blood on your clothes isn’t yours, but we need to know the rest. Were you injured?”

“My head was killing me during the storm, and for a day after.” She touched her hair then dropped her hand again. “I was still hazy when you two arrived.”

A huge grin lit Parker’s face. “But seeing Reid made you snap out of it.”

Reid thought this might be a good time to punch something. “Shutting up now would be good.”

“Honestly? He’s not entirely wrong.” She went back to juggling the pocketknife in her palms. “From experience, I know I need to be awake and on my game to take you on.”

“Thanks, I think.” And that was enough of that talk. Reid nodded in the direction of the satphone sticking out of Parker’s front pocket. “Anything?”

“Already tried and nope.”

Not exactly the answer Reid wanted to hear. “The only possibilities for that other than malfunction—”

“The phone wouldn’t dare fail on your watch.” Cara
topped the comment off with an eye roll that suggested she didn’t find either of the men in front of her all that bright.

“—are a signal jammer or weather.” Reid stopped long enough to spare her a quick glance to let her know he’d heard her joke and was ignoring it. “I’m going with human interference.”

Parker nodded. “Humans tend to mess up a lot of assignments for us.”

“Someone is jamming the signal from a satellite?” she asked, as if mulling the words over, tasting each one, as she said them.

Reid once again fought back the urge to point out how much technology sucked and how often it failed. Refraining from stating the obvious made his head pound. “That’s not quite how it works, but yes. They—whoever the hell ‘they’ are—can block us from using the satphone, but only within a limited range. We should be able to get far enough to break free of the interference.”

“Unless this ‘they’ follows us.” Parker emphasized each word.

Reid knew that was for his benefit. Sort of a this-is-your-fault thing. “Right. Then we can’t get a message out.”

“Which is a big fucking deal since we’re supposed to be in Montana right now, so no one even knows to look for us here.” Parker’s mouth fell into a flat line
as he sat down on the edge of one of the two standing desks and glared at Reid. “This is the last time we vacation together.”

“It’s a shame no one implanted a tracker in you two.” Cara went to work picking up laptops and checking them to see if they turned on.

Parker smiled at Reid.

Reid debated filling her in, but thought she might find some comfort in knowing where he’d learned the trick. “Actually . . .”

Her head popped up and she stared up at him with wide eyes. “Are you serious?”

He hated to squash her growing enthusiasm, but he was about to. “If we weren’t supposed to be off the grid, with no one checking our trackers right now, that piece of technology and bit of required team protocol might actually be helpful.”

She slowly stood up again. “When are you supposed to check in?”

Parker swore under his breath. “Not for another three weeks.”

“Oh, good grief.” She snorted. “Okay, so that’s not going to do us any good. What do we do now?”

Reid’s mind had already flipped into action mode. He looked at Parker and started barking orders. “You cover the outside while Cara gets whatever she needs in here. Then we’re gone.”

When he made a move toward the door to check to
make sure they were still alone, she caught his arm. He could have broken the hold with ease, walked away with little more than a flinch, but he knew where this was going and she deserved honest answers. “Yeah?”

“I know I talked about protocol, but the people are what matters to me. What about my team?”

“We’ll be able to help them once you’re somewhere safe and I have more feet on the ground and a communications system up and running.” The plan made sense. Very logical. Except for the part where he had to come up with a way to actually reach the team first.

“You’re calling in the Alliance.” She didn’t sound worried or upset at the idea.

Reid knew some people got twitchy about this sort of thing. Lethal guys moved in and some panicked. Not her. Not back then and not now. He couldn’t think of anything more sexy. “You bet your sweet ass.”

“Okay.” Parker jumped off the desk. “This sounds personal, so I’ll be outside.”

“Stay close. She only has two minutes.”

Parker nodded and left, closing the door behind him. The move left Reid alone with Cara. Alone for the first time in months and all he could do was watch her. Her movements remained jerky. Likely due to nerves and the fear of the unknown, but she kept it together. She walked around broken desk chairs and pushed a slab of some sort of rock around with the toe of her boot.

The silence fell and still she said nothing. Didn’t
even give him eye contact. Didn’t open any emotional door for him to walk through. If she hadn’t been through a scare and still in the middle of who the hell knew what, he might have launched into a new round of verbal battle. Instead, he did what he’d been doing for over a year, tamped it all down, pushed it back and pretended he didn’t give a shit. “We should try to figure out if we can recover anything because you’re down to one minute.”

She let out a long labored breath. “How charming.”

“I’ve never been accused of that.” By her or anyone.

“Reid—”

“Not now.” He recognized the tone and held up a hand to shut it down. Fucking no way was he letting her set the agenda or say something lame about how leaving him was for the best. Any comment remotely like that would send his anger spiraling even more. “Not if it’s about us or what happened or how you hate that I’m here. You can go back to hating me as soon as you’re out of this open area and less of a target.”

“That’s the point.” She bit her bottom lip.

He’d never seen her do that before. She didn’t really do the whole fidget, nervous gesture thing. “What?”

She visibly swallowed. “I never hated you.”

His heartbeat pounded in his ears. For a second he couldn’t tell if he was furious or happy. His focus kept slipping. Something kept pulling his attention away from her. A noise or stray thought, he wasn’t sure.
He guessed it was some sort of internal call for self-preservation and welcomed it.

He said the only coherent sentence he could form. “Could have fooled me.”

“Reid—”

“Wait.” There it was again. That “something” that sent his instincts ticking. He’d been so lost in looking at her, thinking about her, that he missed the quiet. The shadow. “Damn it. Get down.”

The next second, what was left of the window exploded. The sound of crashing echoed around them. Shards of glass rained down. His only thought was to tackle her and roll.

Then the gunfire started.

F
OR THE
second time in days Cara curled into a ball. She wasn’t the hide-and-weep type. She’d seen things, awful things, while out in the field. People fell off cliffs. Got bitten by snakes. She’d just missed being swallowed by an avalanche years ago, right at the beginning of her career. The kidnapping.

None of it compared to the sensation the last few days of being mentally tossed around and plowed under. The upheaval, the confusion—not knowing if her team members were alive or dead—the dragging sense that she got lucky and didn’t deserve it. The emotions piled up, weighing her down, crushing her chest until she couldn’t breathe.

Seeing Reid walk down that hill both terrified and excited her. She’d tried to move on, date a physicist here and that manic stock analyst there. But it was all noise, and none of it could drown out the doubts rolling through her head. But then she got swept up in a terrifying situation and common sense fled. The will to live, to connect, kicked in.

After a lifetime of doing the right thing even while her parents tried to pull her toward a life of art and music—two things she had zero aptitude for—she ignored every warning bell ringing in her head. Gave in to her attraction to Reid. Went on emotion and spun wild dreams. Forgot the comfort of facts and the reality that their lives were too different to make sense together.

Even though it shredded her, she had walked away. She refused to let the churning inside her draw her back in. She’d never been attracted to the bad boy, always-in-danger type, and refused to start as an adult. But no one had warned her how the pain would eat away at her. How she’d take increasingly riskier field assignments and shrug away any suggestion from her brother that the building need inside her came from Reid.

All of those past doubts mixed with the current fear as anxiety pounded through her. What could have been mixed with the reality of her life falling apart once again, until she could barely stay standing. She’d tried to force the emotions down and concentrate, go to a place in her head that felt safe, but the clanging rushed back on her.

When Reid slammed into her she lost her balance and they both went down. Her arms and legs tangled with his. She tried to reach out to slow their fall but his hand snagged hers. Her head would have bounced against the hard floor but he had them tucking and rolling in midair.

They landed with a crunch on his side. Her shoulder slammed into a chair as the rest of her weight fell against his stomach. His grunt vibrated against her back and echoed in her ears. One of his weapons jabbed into her side.

Then he was up. Boots smacked against the ground, right by her head. Bullets knocked into the walls and furniture stacked around her. Pieces of white brick kicked up around her.

She unwrapped her arms from around her head and peeked up. One man then another slipped through the broken window. Reid sprayed them with bullets, taking each man down with a sickening thud. Blood spilled across the floor. The all-black clothing the men wore, almost uniforms, crumpled around their still forms.

When she heard crashing behind her, Cara started crawling. On her elbows and knees, she scooted across the floor, aiming for the overturned desk. Some form of cover. Still, Reid didn’t run or duck. He moved closer to the window, shooting into the open air. Slamming another attacker in the face when the man tried to grab his gun.

The whole scene took only seconds. Loud, draining seconds of pure terror. In her mind, every move passed in slow motion. The gunfire seemed to come from every direction. She heard yelling and grunts. Heard a crunching sound that seemed to start inside her. Felt panic freeze her muscles and shut down her brain.

She could not die like this. She could not let Reid sacrifice his life for hers.

She forced her mind to focus as footsteps thundered just outside. She had a knife. She had rocks. In this area, northwest of the city of Perm, the one thing they had plenty of was rocks. They’d collected all sorts of samples, including limestone and gypsum. Relatively harmless materials in their raw form. But she could throw them. Cause a diversion. Help Reid beat back the attack.

She slipped behind an overturned cabinet, ignoring the painful thump of her knees against the floor. She had just reached for a chunk of limestone when the front door blew open. The wood splintered and pieces flew through the air. Smoke poured into the confined space but the open window seemed to suck most of it out again.

She could smell fire and hear the crackling. She looked up, searching for Reid. The gray air blocked her view and made her eyes water. Her heart nosedived into her stomach when she spied the bottom of a pair of boots, legs flat on the floor where Reid stood just seconds before.

She blocked all of it. Refused to think about what that could mean.

Flames crawled up the cracked and broken door frame. She heard talking. Russian, she thought, but her mind started to blank on her. Just as she decided to curl
in, get as small as she could, a beefy hand grabbed her ankle. She slid across the floor. Stretching, she reached out to grab the biggest rock she could see, but it slipped out of her fingers.

With one final yank, her body flew toward the fire and the two men standing right there. With their faces and bodies covered, she could only see their eyes. No emotion showed there. Whatever they said to each other was muffled by the sound of the growing fire.

She kicked out, aiming to cause as much damage as possible. After two kicks to the shin of one man, her muscles barely seemed to work. One of them laughed as the other reached down for her. She shimmied and tried to crawl away, but he slammed her body against the floor by putting a foot in the middle of her back. Pain mixed with blinding panic, but she refused to give up.

Everything hurt. Every nerve and every cell. The smoke burned inside her throat and she started coughing. Even her hand hurt . . . her palm. The memories clicked together in her head. She uncurled her fingers and opened the pocketknife. A mental countdown started a second later.

When the attacker grabbed her arm and pulled, she spun around. Using all her strength, she swung the blade and dug it deep into his thigh. He yelled and kicked, nailing her in the cheek. Her head snapped back as she reached to grab the knife for a second stab, this time at the man swinging a gun toward her. Before
she could slash him, however, she heard the
whoosh,
the sliding sound of material, then a bang as the armed man fell to his knees.

A massive weight hit her just as the attacker dropped. The crash knocked her sideways. She tried to spin around, launch an offensive strike before her body fully landed. Whipping her head around she saw a blur, then watched Reid shift to his back and keep shooting. Both of her attackers slammed to the floor just inches from her and right where she’d just been.

One of the man’s heavy arms fell across her ankle. Reid kicked it off.

“Are you okay?” His palm went to her cheek as his frantic gaze searched hers.

“I thought you were dead.”

“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” He sounded out of breath. His chest rose and fell with rapid breathing.

When her eyes finally focused, she noticed the blood soaking his shoulder and the cuts all over him. She jumped to her knees. “You’re hit.”

“We need to get out of here.”

The smell of burning wood hit her then. Flames licked up the walls and danced across the ceiling. The roar drowned out everything else. More men could be out there, ready to shoot, but they had to take the risk.

She struggled to her feet and nearly screamed when her knees buckled. But Reid was there, He caught her,
half carrying and half dragging her as they stumbled through the small opening in the fire and fell onto the dirt outside.

They rolled a few more feet, then Reid braced his body on his elbows above her and he scanned the area. Two more bodies littered the ground. She spied another set of unmoving legs in the distance. No car or truck. No obvious way in or out. No sign of more, but the attackers could just be waiting.

Her insides started to shake. Bile rushed up the back of her throat and she had to fight off the urge to throw up. A hacking sound filled the air, and it took her another few seconds to realize it came from her. Her lungs’ way of choking out the deadly smoke.

Reid rested an arm across her back as she rose to her hands and knees and breathed in huge gulping breaths. “Cara, can anything in there explode?”

“Something blew up the door.”

“That was a smoke grenade gone wrong.” A coughing fit broke up his explanation. It took another few seconds for him to get his body back under control, and even then his voice stayed scratchy. “I don’t think they meant to set the fire.”

“There are explosive materials in there, but mostly just rocks that would need extreme heat to cause damage.” Except for the popping of the fire, she noticed the quiet. Then she thought about all that shooting. “Parker?”

What little color remained in Reid’s face leeched out. He pushed to his feet, wincing and holding his injured arm loose at his side. “Stay here.”

He needed help and possibly stitches. No way was she letting him wander around on his own. “I’m not leaving your side,” she said.

“I’ll refrain from being an asshole and giving the obvious response to that.” He reached a hand down and helped lift her to her feet.

Her boots had barely touched the ground when Reid shoved her behind him again. A second later his shoulders relaxed and he lowered his weapon.

Parker was aiming a hose, directing a flow of water at the fire. “There’s a water tank in the back.”

“That’s our drinking water,” she said, knowing that sounded ridiculous, but so was the sight of Parker dragging the threadbare hose, walking around and . . . Was he whistling?

“I don’t think you’ll need it.” His gaze drifted over her and Reid. “You two look like shit.”

Reid just shook his head. “You okay?”

Parker held up a hand and wiggled one finger. “I caught my thumb on that shitty gun you bought for me.”

The laughter bubbled up out of nowhere. Cara almost doubled over from the force of it. Relief, hope . . . she wasn’t sure what caused it, but the panic subsided and took what felt like most of her common sense with it.

Parker frowned at her. “She finally lose it?”

“Nerves.” Reid stared into the dying fire. “I’m afraid whatever you wanted to collect is gone.”

She didn’t even try to hide her smile. “Wrong.”

Instead of getting angry or issuing orders, Reid looked amused. “What am I missing?”

“The backup of all our findings so far is on a jump drive I hid in the bathroom of the one building not on fire or in danger of catching fire at the moment.”

Parker nodded as he shut down the hose. “Impressive.”

“There should also be supplies and some extra clothes in the cabin at that end.” She pointed, hoping they were still there since the idea of walking around in bloodstained clothes made her physically ill. She knew she should have changed before, but her mind hadn’t been working right. Now it was . . . so long as she blocked out the memory of stabbing a guy.

“Maybe I should put you in charge,” Reid said.

“No doubt about it.” She glanced to Parker, hoping to get an assist for what came next. “We need to check Reid here before he passes out.”

Reid scoffed. “That will never happen.”

And she had no doubt that he could make sure of that by using sheer will.

“We need to get moving,” he said.

She was about to ask to where when Parker said, “They came off the mountain.”

“Otorten.” Just saying the name made her shiver.

Parker dropped the hose and stomped out the remaining flames, catching the few stray glowing embers. “Mountain of the Dead.”

“Sort of.” The folklore on that, as far as she could tell, was overblown. Probably dated back past the Dyatlov Pass incident and the propensity of people to want to make it into some sort of crazy alien conspiracy. “Technically, I think it actually means ‘do not go there’ in Mansi, the language of the indigenous people who live in this area.”

“Oh, that’s better.” Reid’s tone still contained a rasp but his eyes looked clearer now.

The last thing she needed was two people searching for whacky reasons to be afraid of an impersonal slab of earth. They had enough to worry about without taking on the mountain. “The point is, men—not the mountain—just attacked us.”

Reid stood up a little straighter. “Speaking of which, that could have been the first wave.”

“Of what, exactly?” She could not take on one more thing right now. Her body craved a shower and a bed. She needed a few minutes to clear her mind and come at the idea of finding her missing team from a different angle. Nothing she’d thought of so far had gotten her one step closer to an answer.

He didn’t blink. “Attacks by the people who want you dead, or at the very least, with the rest of your team.”

“Great.” The word slipped out before she could stop it. A few more seconds and she might sit down on the ground and not get up again. She’d run out of energy and her emotional strength was all but drained.

Reid lifted the collar of his shirt to inspect his wound before glancing at Parker. “Any ID on these guys?”

“Of course not.” Parker shrugged. “But at least we have more weapons now. Newer ones. These guys were trained and well-equipped.”

“Probably military or at least former military.” Reid grumbled something under his breath before talking in a regular voice again. “Take photos, just in case we can get something back to the Warehouse for face recognition.”

She caught words here and there. None of them sounded too good to her. “Warehouse?”

“The official name of our headquarters,” Reid explained.

She still didn’t like the sound of it. “Seems ominous.”

Parker slipped around her and headed for the still body closest to him. “Almost as ominous as being stuck in the mountains in the middle of nowhere with limited weapons.”

She stared at him. “You’re not really a people person, are you?”